


The After

by ghostnebula (gghostnebula)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Afterlife, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Fluff, M/M, Mentioned Maturin | The Turtle, Reunions, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Short & Sweet, Where the fuck did this come from?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-17
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:41:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22764178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gghostnebula/pseuds/ghostnebula
Summary: When he calms himself enough to draw back, the question of‘whereishere?’nagging lazily at the back of his mind, he presses his hands to Eddie’s freckled cheeks and just takes him in. He doesn’t know if he should find it odd, that Eddie looks all at once like the first day they met and the day he--
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 69





	The After

**Author's Note:**

> Who tf wrote this? This is not how I usually write things.  
> I got overwhelmed with soft feelings today, blacked out, and when I woke up I had this.  
> Somewhat inspired by this post someone sent to the discord server that made me go, "Hm. No. I want them to have a happy ending."  
> 

* * *

The rest of him comes together just in time for him to feel his feet touch down. His vision returns to him a split second later.

Richie doesn’t know, yet, what he’s feeling, except to describe it as “apart from himself” as he gazes around at the expanse of unrecognizable stars on the endless ink canvas around him, the reflective white surface he finds himself standing on -- ending abruptly a few metres away but stretching on forever -- and the turtle.

There’s something familiar about the turtle. “Old friend” familiar. Something  _ important _ about turtles…

_ More _ familiar, though, is the figure sat cross-legged on the turtle’s shell, back to him, chin propped on his hand as he, too, stares out at the stars. 

Richie doesn’t know where he is or  _ quite _ who he is or  _ why _ he is, interestingly enough, but one thing (one person) he knows beyond a shadow of a doubt is

“Eds?”

Eddie startles. Whips his head around to look at him, jaw dropping for a split second before his lips stretch into a dazzling smile. “Richie!”

He slides down the shell just as Richie finally figures out how to move his feet. Once he gains momentum, he doesn’t slow, surging forward with an urgency he can’t place the origin of, to get to  _ Eddie Eddie Eddie it’s been so _

They crash into each other with bruising force. Richie’s heart swells and his eyes burn as he buries his face in the gentle waves of Eddie’s hair and  _ breathes. _ In, out. Slow. Tries not to cry.

Fails.

“You’re here.” Oh. Eddie’s crying, too. Why? It’s not as if

When he calms himself enough to draw back, the question of ' _ where  _ **_is_ ** _ here?' _ nagging lazily at the back of his mind, he presses his hands to Eddie’s freckled cheeks and just takes him in. He doesn’t know if he should find it odd, that Eddie looks all at once like the first day they met and the day he

_ Looks, _ all at once, like Richie’s sixteenth birthday party and the start of college and crying over scraped knees somewhere on Witcham Street when they were still young and naive. Like roping him into playing  _ Street Fighter _ and Saturday matinees and cloud-watching at Bassey Park. Like climbing, silent, through an unlatched window and homework in the clubhouse and a first kiss shared under the stars. 

Like home, he can’t help but think, and then the next thing he does is kiss Eddie before he can process any of it. 

“I miss you,” he says, with no clue what he even means. What’s there to miss? Then, “I love you.”

Eddie’s eyes sparkle with tears and reflected starlight and he’s _beautiful._ Richie wants to hold him like this every day for the rest of time and _tell him,_ every day, for the rest of time, how beautiful he is. Something tells him he _can._ He can.

He will. 

So he tells him, and Eddie’s smile grows bigger while more tears spill down his cheeks, and he’s as perfect as the day they met and every day since then. As perfect as  _ Let’s run away together _ , splashing around in the Kenduskeag, a sleeping body pressed against his in a hammock they’ve long outgrown. 

He stops feeling apart from himself  _ suddenly; _ the  _ jolt _ of a falling sensation in the moments before sleep would come. Blinks several times. Takes in the strange stars again.

“Eds,” he says, in a voice that belongs to a rowdy young boy and an uncertain adolescent and a man greying with age all in the same breath, “where are we?”

Eddie’s hands are still on his shoulders. Eddie’s still gazing up at him with shining brown eyes that say  _ I love you I love you I love you I  _ **_miss_ ** _ you I love _

“I’ve never really known,” he whispers. His fingers catch a strand of Richie’s hair and twirl it absently, never looking away. “I think it’s what happens after.”

“After?”

Eddie nods mutely and Richie  _ knows, _ without really knowing. Remembers, but doesn’t wholly recall. 

“Oh,” he breathes, and Eddie nods again.

_ “After.” _

The silence in this place is all-encompassing and nonexistent. The stars  _ hum. _ The surface they’re standing on rings like chimes. The blackness is singing but Richie can’t hear it to understand it. It’s  _ quiet. _

The turtle doesn’t make a sound. It doesn’t move. Richie can’t tell if it’s alive or dead. It doesn’t have to be either, he thinks. It just  _ is, _ and that’s enough. It’s job is long finished.

It will never decay because it isn’t made of anything, but it’s comprised of  _ everything, _ too.

He suspects this would all give him a bitch of a headache, in a different life. 

His thumb strokes over Eddie’s cheek, smudging tears away. He never wants to let go of him.

He doesn’t have to. He understands this now. “Does this mean I get to spend eternity with you?”

Eddie shrugs, then nods. “I… I think so.”

_ Nothing better. _ Richie’s lips touch his forehead and depart with a wet smack that has Eddie laughing and shoving at his chest. The music around them grows louder in its simultaneous silence. “Darling, I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

* * *


End file.
